Essential Listening: This week’s best new music
Welcome back to Essential Listening, a place where we compile all the best new music of the week into the definitive tome of modern music: The Far Out Playlist.
After an unfortunate stomach bug sidelined the weekly roundup last week, we’re back, baby! And what a time to be back – after swimming around in Arctic Monkeys, Taylor Swift and Dry Cleaning songs throughout the week, it’s time to turn our attention to a new Album of the Week: Benjamin Clementine’s engrossing and atmospheric And I Have Been.
Before we got a chance to check them out, we got new music from Rihanna and Iggy Pop. Not together, of course; that would be weird. Or maybe awesome. It’s hard to tell, but Rihanna’s recent addition to the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, ‘Lift Me Up’, is the singer’s first new music release since her feature on PartyNextDoor’s 2020 single ‘Believe’. As for Pop, ‘Frenzy’ represents a look into Pop’s upcoming 19th studio album.
Those aren’t the only singles worth talking about though. There have been plenty of great new tracks to obsess over from this week. Still, there are only eight songs that can make this list. Here is all the best new music from the week, compiled into The Far Out Playlist.
Best new music, October 24th – October 30th:
Orbital – ‘Dirty Rat’ (ft. Sleaford Mods)
Orbital have announced their next full-length album, Optical Delusion. It will be the iconic electronic duo’s tenth studio record and will be released on February 17th, 2023. The album will be their first since Monsters Exist was released back in 2018. Whilst announcing their new album, Orbital also dropped the first single from Optical Delusion, a collaboration with Sleaford Mods entitled ‘Dirty Rat’.
This is not the first time that Orbital and the Nottingham-based Sleaford Mods have worked together. The electro-heads released a remix of the post-punks’ tune ‘I Don’t Rate You’ last year. Jason of Sleaford Mods said in relation to the track’s themes, “The ongoing culture of non-thought mostly exists because of a lack of education into critical thought. How do you mobilise a people firmly imprisoned by a concrete system?”
Holly Humberstone – ‘Can You Afford To Lose Me?’
Of all the emerging artists to arrive on the indie scene over the last and change, few have managed to ascend to the heights that Holly Humberstone has. That full-length debut is just around the corner, but for the scores of new fans that she collected as the opening act on Olivia Rodrigo’s recent Sour tour, Humberstone has released the new compilation EP Can You Afford to Lose Me?
‘Can You Afford To Lose Me’ is right within the singer’s whispery wheelhouse, with a knife-edge vocal performance that’s at once icy cold and intimately warm. The track is mostly just a showcase for Humberstone’s voice and her lyrics – the rest of the track is particularly light and slightly buzzy, with electronic elements floating around the background to make a spooky soundscape.
U.S. Girls – ‘Bless This Mess’
Meg Remy, better known under her experimental alt-pop stage name U.S. Girls, has returned with a brand new single, the hovering gospel-infused ballad ‘Bless This Mess’.
It’s been two years since Remy dropped her wacky and wonderful seventh studio album Heavy Light. In contrast to some of the more out-there sounds that U.S. Girls typically pick up on, ‘Bless This Mess’ is a pretty straightforward and heart-rending ballad about “doing your best”. The accompanying video features real footage from Remy singing as a child.
Andrew Bird – ‘I Felt A Funeral, In My Brain’ (ft. Phoebe Bridgers)
Andrew Bird and Phoebe Bridgers have come together to share a reworked version of Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’. Meanwhile, Bird has announced the new rescheduled date for his London show at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on February 19th 2023.
Both Bird and Bridgers take turns reciting the verses composed of Dickinson’s words. The track mostly explores – like much of Dickinson’s work – the inner workings of the mind. In several ways, this is also the wish of Bird, whose new album Inside Problems attempts to tackle the inner demons within.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – ‘I Killed Captain Cook’
Unknown Mortal Orchestra have released the first track from their forthcoming double album. The song is entitled ‘I Killed Captain Cook’. The band have also announced that they will be heading out on tour throughout 2023.
The new track is an acoustic tune told from the viewpoint of the Hawaiian killer who put an end to the life of exploring coloniser Captain James Cook. Cook had tried to kidnap a Hawaiian chief back in 1779. Ruban Nielson explained that his mother would tell him the story when he was a young lad.
Fucked Up – ‘One Day’
Fucked Up have announced a new album entitled One Day. The record is scheduled for release early next year on January 27th, and much of it had actually been written and recorded in a single day, as its title suggests. Guitarist Mike Haliechuk came up with the conceptual idea for the album. He had recorded his parts over three eight-hour sessions and got his bandmates to do the same.
Fucked Up announced the album alongside the release of a video for its title track. The video was filmed in the Great Hall in Fucked Up’s hometown of Toronto and was directed by Colin Medley. The track has Damian Abraham on lyric duty for the first time since the band’s 2014 album Glass Boys.
White Reaper – ‘Pages’
American garage rockers White Reaper have returned with their first new music of 2022. After a relatively quiet 2021, the band have cranked up the amplifiers and returned with the fresh track ‘Pages’.
Now officially three years removed from their breakthrough LP You Deserve Love, White Reaper keep the good times going with ‘Pages’. The group are a throwback only in the sense that they’re uncomplicated and straightforward rock music. If you think that kind of sound hasn’t existed for a while, then you need to check out ‘Pages’.
The Lathums – ‘Say My Name’
Following the success of their chart-topping debut album, How Beautiful Life Can Be, The Lathums are back with their brooding new single, ‘Say My Name’. Furthermore, there’s also full details of LP number two, From Nothing To A Little Bit More, which arrives on February 24th through Island Records.
Fans will already be familiar with the new single, ‘Say My Name’, after they aired it on the Main Stage at Reading & Leeds this summer. Additionally, it went down a storm during their recent mini-tour of the United Kingdom. Now it’s officially out, and marking the second chapter for one of the most exciting bands Britain has produced in recent years.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out New Music Newsletter
All the latest New Music from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.